STMP is the PEAK of "Original Series" Trek for yours truly...
Dear Fellow Trekkers:
Data's Calabash here, a new member of The Trek BBS with my first post in our forum.
Ever since I saw STMP in a local theatre on its premiere night of December 7, 1979, it has been "the Trek Movie" on which everything else to come depended on so critically, both in theatres and on the "small screen", and to be compared to.
And even though just about everything "Star Wars" that I've seen so far has, on each occasion been a decently enjoyable story in itself and in contributing to the whole of what's existed "long. long ago in a galaxy far, far away"...
...it's STILL the ongoing stories that Gene Roddenberry himself started way back in my youth (I was six when "The Man Trap" first aired on NBC on the evening of September 8, 1966) that have been so important going forward.
For example, the romance hinted at between will Decker and Ilia in STMP was "revisited" to a degree with Will Riker and Deanna Troi, as both Deltans and Betazoids shared similar types of empathic powers with other species.
I have the Director's Edition DVD of STMP as the ONLY movie DVD I've ever wanted to own, more than any other - that movie, of any that I have ever seen in my own life of six decades now, is the single BEST movie I have ever seen, and that I am EVER likely to see.
One thing that some people might not realize about that movie, though, is that on page 179 of the original paperback novelization of STMP...written by Gene Roddenberry HIMSELF, the only Star Trek novel he ever wrote...we very likely see the true "intended" manner of HOW to spell the same of the Earth space probe that was transformed by the "planet of living machines" in its text...I quote, from when Jim Kirk first spoke to the "Ilia-probe" sent inside the Enterprise by "the Intruder":
"I am Captain James T. Kirk, commanding U.S.S. Enterprise," Kirk replied, feeling somewhat foolish saying this to what looked like his own navigator. Was Ilia really this incredibly sensuous?
"I have been programmed to observe and record normal functions of the carbon-based units infesting U.S.S. Enterprise."
"Programmed by whom?" asked Kirk. "It is important we communicate with them."
The probe seemed puzzled. "If you require a designation, I was programmed by Vejur."
Ever since I first read that novel, I have only accepted the "Vejur" spelling as the canonical one, and no other...it IS from Gene's own writing of the novel; so to my mind, it HAS to have the strongest degree of "canonicity" that ANYTHING in Trekdom can ever have for such a subject.
Of course, we DO finally get to find out in the movie itself, about Vejur's own reading of its spatial-hazard-scarred nameplate only displaying the undamaged letters "V - - - G E R" in the scene where Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Decker and Ilia exit from the dorsal side of the 1701's primary hull to personally encounter the still-functioning Voyager 6 probe relic, hence the use of Gene's "Vejur" spelling to explain how "the Intruder" pronounces what it perceives its own name to be.
I also have the Columbia Records-produced LP record of the STMP soundtrack, and the very same "Vejur" spelling is on there for one of the music tracks from the movie.
True, "many more" accept the "V'ger" spelling, and there's even been disagreements about whether the "G" in that form should be capitalized, or should be "lower case"...but the "Vejur" form seem in the text of the paperback edition of the STMP novelization DOES spell it that way...from GENE RODDENBERRY's own hand...and the additional presence of it on that soundtrack LP record label could seem to add "just a little more" credence to it, perhaps, being the intended "canonical" spelling for it going forward.
Thanks and Yours Sincerely,
Data's Calabash
Dear Fellow Trekkers:
Data's Calabash here, a new member of The Trek BBS with my first post in our forum.
Ever since I saw STMP in a local theatre on its premiere night of December 7, 1979, it has been "the Trek Movie" on which everything else to come depended on so critically, both in theatres and on the "small screen", and to be compared to.
And even though just about everything "Star Wars" that I've seen so far has, on each occasion been a decently enjoyable story in itself and in contributing to the whole of what's existed "long. long ago in a galaxy far, far away"...
...it's STILL the ongoing stories that Gene Roddenberry himself started way back in my youth (I was six when "The Man Trap" first aired on NBC on the evening of September 8, 1966) that have been so important going forward.
For example, the romance hinted at between will Decker and Ilia in STMP was "revisited" to a degree with Will Riker and Deanna Troi, as both Deltans and Betazoids shared similar types of empathic powers with other species.
I have the Director's Edition DVD of STMP as the ONLY movie DVD I've ever wanted to own, more than any other - that movie, of any that I have ever seen in my own life of six decades now, is the single BEST movie I have ever seen, and that I am EVER likely to see.
One thing that some people might not realize about that movie, though, is that on page 179 of the original paperback novelization of STMP...written by Gene Roddenberry HIMSELF, the only Star Trek novel he ever wrote...we very likely see the true "intended" manner of HOW to spell the same of the Earth space probe that was transformed by the "planet of living machines" in its text...I quote, from when Jim Kirk first spoke to the "Ilia-probe" sent inside the Enterprise by "the Intruder":
"I am Captain James T. Kirk, commanding U.S.S. Enterprise," Kirk replied, feeling somewhat foolish saying this to what looked like his own navigator. Was Ilia really this incredibly sensuous?
"I have been programmed to observe and record normal functions of the carbon-based units infesting U.S.S. Enterprise."
"Programmed by whom?" asked Kirk. "It is important we communicate with them."
The probe seemed puzzled. "If you require a designation, I was programmed by Vejur."
Ever since I first read that novel, I have only accepted the "Vejur" spelling as the canonical one, and no other...it IS from Gene's own writing of the novel; so to my mind, it HAS to have the strongest degree of "canonicity" that ANYTHING in Trekdom can ever have for such a subject.
Of course, we DO finally get to find out in the movie itself, about Vejur's own reading of its spatial-hazard-scarred nameplate only displaying the undamaged letters "V - - - G E R" in the scene where Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Decker and Ilia exit from the dorsal side of the 1701's primary hull to personally encounter the still-functioning Voyager 6 probe relic, hence the use of Gene's "Vejur" spelling to explain how "the Intruder" pronounces what it perceives its own name to be.
I also have the Columbia Records-produced LP record of the STMP soundtrack, and the very same "Vejur" spelling is on there for one of the music tracks from the movie.
True, "many more" accept the "V'ger" spelling, and there's even been disagreements about whether the "G" in that form should be capitalized, or should be "lower case"...but the "Vejur" form seem in the text of the paperback edition of the STMP novelization DOES spell it that way...from GENE RODDENBERRY's own hand...and the additional presence of it on that soundtrack LP record label could seem to add "just a little more" credence to it, perhaps, being the intended "canonical" spelling for it going forward.
Thanks and Yours Sincerely,
Data's Calabash
